Julie Taymor

Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director of theater, opera and film. She is best known for directing the stage musical, The Lion King, for which she became the first woman to win the Tony Award for directing a musical, in addition to a Tony Award for Original Costume Design.

She has also received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award, and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song. She also received the 2012 Director Award for Vision and Courage from the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City. She was the director of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and an off-Broadway production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Early life and education

Taymor was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the daughter of Jewish parents Elizabeth (née Bernstein), a political science teacher, and Melvin Lester Taymor, a gynecologist. Taymor's interest in theatre took root early in her life. At the age of seven, she was already drawing her sister into stagings of children's stories for her parents. By age ten, she was entranced by the Boston Children's Theatre and became involved with them. Being the youngest member of theatre groups became common. By 11, she was taking trips to Boston by herself every weekend, where she discovered Julie Portman's Theatre Workshop. At the age of 13, her parents sent her to both Sri Lanka and India with the Experiment in International Living. After graduating High School at 16, Taymor went to Paris to study with L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Her studies there exposed her to mime, which helped develop her physical sensibilities. While in Paris, Taymor worked with masks for the first time and immersed herself in film, especially the work of Fellini and Kurosawa.